COTTAGE GARDENING — A DIGRESSION. 175 



CHAPTER XLIX. 



COTTAGE GARDENING— A DIGRESSION. 



Before taking up the subject of vegetable culture, I 

 will relate an incident connected with cottage gardening 

 that may interest if it does not benefit some of those into 

 whose hands this book may fall. About a dozen years ago 

 I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of a gen- 

 tleman whose duties compelled him to be at his desk in 

 a close office in the City of New York, from 9 o'clock A. m. 

 to 4 p.m. Being naturally of a weak constitution, his 

 sedentary life soon made him the victim of dyspepsia to 

 such a degree that he felt that he must soon resign his 

 situation. He was then a man of forty, entirely ignorant 

 of anything pertaining to country life, and it was with 

 great misgivings and reluctance that, by the advice of 

 his physician, he changed his home from a closely built 

 part of New York to a cottage in the then country-like 

 suburb of Bergen Heights, N. J. His means enabled 

 him to purchase a modest cottage built on a lot 50 by 

 150 feet ; he did not want the land, he said, but the cot- 

 tage was such as he fancied, and the ground had to go 

 with it. It was about this time that I formed his ac- 

 quaintance, through some business transaction, and he 

 asked my professional advice as to what he could do with 

 his land, which he had already begun to consider some- 

 what of an incumbrance. I replied to him that, if I was 

 not greatly mistaken, in his little plot of ground lay a 

 cure for all his bodily ills, and that besides it could add 

 to the comforts if not the luxuries of his table if he would 

 only work it. "I work it ! " he exclaimed. " You don't 

 suppose that these hands could dig or delve," holding up 

 his thin and bloodless fingers, "and if they could I know 



